The game design shown here is really well executed and intelligent. The premise of a "sea of thieves" esque MMO where you can battle players and build your way to the top is really riveting. Though, perhaps I'm just playing it wrong, but the game is really difficult. Like I was never able to buy the next ship. But maybe its just me. Great job!
No you're absolutely right, I didn't get around to testing my guesstimated values, and of course there's also a bug where the next ship doesn't actually improve your stats :D I'm fixing that right now and will have a look at the progression while I'm at it
Haha, I appreciate that you updated it! Earlier today, I played for a while trying to grind up enough for the third ship; I got a sweet 4,000 from the whale, but then I accidentally refreshed the page and had to grind it back up again. I only got up to around 2,500 before I had to leave, so imagine my surprise when I came back one more time to try again and got a huge ship discount! I'd been wondering about the stats as well.
Amusing concept and fun aesthetic. Genuinely was excited to find and fight the whale — it's such a small thing, but it felt like I'd uncovered something since I hadn't seen it at all until I went looking for it.
It seems like it's not possible to guarantee a perfect fight since some of the faster enemies can spawn near the center of the screen and get a shot off before you can land one, but obviously that's not a significant problem given the scope and speed of the game.
With the fixed numbers, once I'd learned all the ship timings, it took me less than 2 minutes of game time (so not counting the fights) to beat the whale from a fresh start and then upgrade my ship, but in the spirit of the jam, I stuck it out to the end of the timer just to see what would happen. No regrets!
All in all, clever concept and fun execution. And the battle theme is now stuck in my head, so thanks for that! (And I'm curious about the Bomb screenshot seen with the previous version — something that just didn't get implemented? A different version of the battle system?)
Thank you! :D I actually also changed the spawning in the update since that bothered me too when I finally tested it. Though now that I'm thinking about the fixed values, I wonder how the combat feels if I randomize the speeds a little bit, so every fight needs at least a little figuring out... Will have to give it a try!
I might also change that the timer pauses for battles now that it's all a bit faster, or at least set to seconds away from shutdown once you've beaten the whale.
As for the bomb screen, that was the first version of combat I submitted to the Nokia Jam last week. It was sort of an auto-battler that you could only help along with the bombs in a pinch (pretty much the Assassin's Creed fleet minigame, only bad and boring :D) but I didn't manage to finish the game at all, there's not even the whale in it. If you wanna see it though, I've saved that version here.
Comments
The game design shown here is really well executed and intelligent. The premise of a "sea of thieves" esque MMO where you can battle players and build your way to the top is really riveting. Though, perhaps I'm just playing it wrong, but the game is really difficult. Like I was never able to buy the next ship. But maybe its just me. Great job!
No you're absolutely right, I didn't get around to testing my guesstimated values, and of course there's also a bug where the next ship doesn't actually improve your stats :D I'm fixing that right now and will have a look at the progression while I'm at it
Haha, I appreciate that you updated it! Earlier today, I played for a while trying to grind up enough for the third ship; I got a sweet 4,000 from the whale, but then I accidentally refreshed the page and had to grind it back up again. I only got up to around 2,500 before I had to leave, so imagine my surprise when I came back one more time to try again and got a huge ship discount! I'd been wondering about the stats as well.
Amusing concept and fun aesthetic. Genuinely was excited to find and fight the whale — it's such a small thing, but it felt like I'd uncovered something since I hadn't seen it at all until I went looking for it.
It seems like it's not possible to guarantee a perfect fight since some of the faster enemies can spawn near the center of the screen and get a shot off before you can land one, but obviously that's not a significant problem given the scope and speed of the game.
With the fixed numbers, once I'd learned all the ship timings, it took me less than 2 minutes of game time (so not counting the fights) to beat the whale from a fresh start and then upgrade my ship, but in the spirit of the jam, I stuck it out to the end of the timer just to see what would happen. No regrets!
All in all, clever concept and fun execution. And the battle theme is now stuck in my head, so thanks for that! (And I'm curious about the Bomb screenshot seen with the previous version — something that just didn't get implemented? A different version of the battle system?)
Thank you! :D I actually also changed the spawning in the update since that bothered me too when I finally tested it. Though now that I'm thinking about the fixed values, I wonder how the combat feels if I randomize the speeds a little bit, so every fight needs at least a little figuring out... Will have to give it a try!
I might also change that the timer pauses for battles now that it's all a bit faster, or at least set to seconds away from shutdown once you've beaten the whale.
As for the bomb screen, that was the first version of combat I submitted to the Nokia Jam last week. It was sort of an auto-battler that you could only help along with the bombs in a pinch (pretty much the Assassin's Creed fleet minigame, only bad and boring :D) but I didn't manage to finish the game at all, there's not even the whale in it. If you wanna see it though, I've saved that version here.
Anywho, thanks for your feedback!
Ooh, I really like the idea of skipping the timer forward after you beat the whale. Sneaky way to add some dramatic tension!
The bomb thing makes sense, the current version definitely requires more skill. And the view from the deck of the ship is more interesting, as well.